


Moved

by gloriousthorn



Category: Andrew Hozier-Byrne (Musician), Movement - Hozier (Song)
Genre: I was challenging myself to write something totally without gender, Inspired by a Hozier Song, Other, Reunions, also this is yet another reunion story, because while I may challenge myself in some ways, in other ways I remain resolutely a one-trick pony, not sure what else to say, this is about a dancer and their lover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 08:00:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18149210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriousthorn/pseuds/gloriousthorn
Summary: After a long absence, a dancer and their lover make plans to reunite.There is pain, of several different kinds.The lover sees it, and is ready to respond.





	Moved

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by Hozier's comments on deliberately choosing to leave gender out of some of his songs, and by the lovely LGBTQ+ folks I've met in the fandom, to try this story. Hope you enjoy it.

 

It felt like half the night to drive here, though it was only two hours or so, right after the last show ended, my feet so tender that even pressing the brake as I backed into the driveway hurt my toes.  I took my bag off the passenger’s seat and pulled up the code to unlock the door like I’d done last autumn when we came here ( _fuck it,_ you said, a little sideways smile, _I’ve got a few days, what do you say we just look up someplace on Airbnb and get out of here,_ and we found this perfect cottage nestled at the foot of a hill a few counties away), anticipating the massive bed with its pristine white down duvet against the black cast-iron frame and the braided area rug in muted greens, the aged dark wood floor and the moonlight spilling in during the night and the sunlight in the morning.  For a few minutes I was alone, and I went inside and laid myself down on the bed and just closed my eyes and prayed, to what god I didn’t know, for you. For us. For another chance at— this.

 

In the end, you weren’t too far behind me.  I thought I’d lost sight of your headlights with about forty-five minutes left to go (not that I thought you’d turned back), but maybe I was just tired.   _And that was “_ Clair de lune, _"_ murmured the late-night DJ on the classical station, _the third movement from Debussy’s_ Suite bergamesque.   _Incredible, he was only twenty-eight when he composed what would become one of his best-loved works._ And I had gotten lost in the music, and then I thought you were gone.  But I was just tired.

 

I am tired.  All I want tonight is to turn off my phone, lie myself down in the bed I remember from the autumn, listen to you murmur or sing some gentle nonsense, fall asleep in your arms.  And that moment is so close as you pull into the driveway and cut the engine. Everything is dark until the motion-sensing light on the porch flips on once you take a few steps towards the house, towards me, and in that darkness I pause, and say a prayer of gratitude that you are here and I am here and nothing has touched us or can touch us.

 

The show went so well.  I should be grateful— I am, make no mistake.  It’s going to change things for me— the reviews, the sales, the tweets, everything that shouldn’t matter and doesn’t matter on a cosmic scale, but while my body is relatively young and healthy, I have to do what I can.  It’s just that it didn’t come for free. Not that we expected it would. _This is an important time for both of us,_ we said.  

 

 _You go finish your songs,_ I said. _I’ll concentrate on the show._

 

 _And when it’s over, we’ll take some time, for this,_ you said.

 

We did it.  I think about it in the darkness, even as I feel you flipping through your phone for the code for the door I texted you before we left.  Should I get up and let you in? No. I want to know that you’ve come in on your own.

 

We did it.  Every damn day a struggle.  I don’t think you disagree. There was the time difference, the vampire hours you keep when you’re unsupervised and away from everyone.  There were the expectations, those self-imposed and those of others, both of us confessing in texts without capital letters or punctuation marks: _my hips are killing me this song is a pile of nonsense i fell today and i was afraid i’d broken something my god they’d have to shoot me like a horse i can’t figure out the harmonies_

 

There were bound to be misunderstandings.  We’d make appointments to FaceTime and one of us would forget, caught up in the movement of the body or the music, or one of us would fall asleep too early or wake up too late.   _This is ridiculous,_ I even snapped once, about a month ago.   _We hardly know each other.  I don’t know how we’re supposed to keep this going._ You sighed, looked away.  I regretted it instantly when I saw you in profile, the side of your face too beautiful to forget.  But you said, _Christ, I don’t know.  Maybe you’re right._

 

Now you’re inside, just in the doorway for a moment.  You don’t come closer to me, not yet. I take in your shape there, as you lean— you want to look confident, but you’re tentative, wondering.  Wondering if the magic will still be there. You’re sliding your phone in your jacket pocket too slowly, trying to make it look casual. You’re pushing a handful of hair out of your face, a streak of moonlight cutting across.  The cottage is small, just a kitchenette and a bistro table between you and where I am on the bed, the bathroom tucked away in the corner beyond both of us. I’m still sitting in the dark.

 

Three days later, though, as I was finishing rehearsal and it would have been the middle of the night for you.  You sent me a song, attached to a one-word e-mail: _listen_

 

I did.  It was raw, just a demo, your voice and a guitar.  But I got it. It was the distance, the motion set in motion when we parted so reluctantly.  It was the winter coming to an end. It was a hope you were holding on to.

 

I didn’t know how to respond.  Then you texted a little while later: _let’s not do this_

 

I was afraid.  I didn’t know what you meant.   _what?_

 

_i don’t want to do this again_

 

_what do you mean?_

 

_without you_

 

I texted back without even thinking: _ok_

 

_ok?_

 

_you’re right_

 

_you agree?_

 

_yeah_

 

And we didn’t speak of it, not directly, again.  Somehow we knew what we meant. We made the rest of the arrangements for this week by e-mail like our parents would have.  Like our parents would have I tracked your flight in the early morning hours when I should have been sleeping. In a daze I packed a bag, still not sure even now what I might have thrown in there.  Here’s hoping there’s my phone charger, a toothbrush, some clean underwear.

 

Neither of us wants to disturb the silence.  Finally you clear your throat a little. “Hey.”

 

“Hey.  You made it.”

 

“Yeah.”  You walk towards me, take your overnight bag off your shoulder.   “What, you thought I wouldn’t?”

 

I shake my head.  “Not at all.”

 

“That’s right.  Not a chance.” You set the bag down next to the bed and then sit down beside me.  “And here you are.”

 

I nod.

 

You shrug out of your jacket, toss it over the footboard of the bed, and lay your head briefly on my shoulder.  “Did I tell you yet how incredible you were up there?” you ask. “Those leaps, I— you were...I’m just glad I got to see it.  It was like you wrestled gravity and won.”

 

“I’m not sure I won, but thank you.”

 

“To a draw, then, at least.”  You nuzzle my cheek. I smell your hair, like Christmas— cinnamon, pine, presents.  

 

“You just got here?”

 

I nod.  

 

“You were speeding, you know.”

 

“I wasn’t.”

 

“You were.  I was doing seventy and I lost sight of you.”

 

“I thought I’d lost you.”

 

“I thought _I’d_ lost _you._ ”  You lift your head, gnaw the side of your right thumbnail for a moment.  “This is a metaphor, then, isn’t it.”

 

“Hmm.  That’s your department.”

 

“Sometimes.”  Your hair falls over your face; you push it back, sigh, and then turn to me and smile.  “Hey. Here we are. Let’s relax. I’ve got your choice of wine or whiskey, we can put on some music…”

 

“Yes to all.”  I grin back.

 

“I know— we should probably talk…”

 

“About…?”

 

“That— what I said.”

 

“What’s there to talk about?”

 

“Well.  I don’t know.  Maybe you were— tired, I don’t know…”

 

“Here I am.  You think it was too much for me?  That I changed my mind?”

 

You smile, a little sheepishly now.  “I guess not.”

 

“We’ll figure out the details.”

 

“We will.  So we’ll just relax tonight, yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

You reach for my face, stroke the side of my cheek for a moment, kiss me.  I haven’t kissed you in six months. It’s just as sweet as I remember, both our mouths a little slack, tongues sliding into each other, teeth holding on for the briefest moment before letting go.  Something in me loosens, the first few rocks in a landslide. Something I wasn’t even sure I was holding.

 

You slide your hand under my shirt and I can feel your moan in my own throat.  It’s soft, barely even sexual, but there, and I can feel the change in myself. The rocky knot loosens a little further.  

 

You stop there, though.  “You okay?”

 

“Yeah.  Just tired.”

 

“I can stop.”

 

“I— no.  Maybe.”

 

You back away.  Kindly, no guilt trip.  “Maybe we should just go to sleep.”

 

“Let’s get comfortable and then decide.”

 

“That’s an idea.  Still want a drink?”

 

“Yeah.  I’ll have the wine.”

 

“You get comfortable, I’ll get the wine.”

 

You swipe my lips gently with your finger, then switch on the bedside lamp, throwing soft gold light in a small but warm circle.  You grab your phone from your jacket pocket and a speaker from your bag, and fuss with both for a minute. “Little Trip to Heaven” by Tom Waits.  Come _on._ I sigh.   _I don’t like his later stuff,_ I said when you gushed about Tom Waits.   _His early stuff, that’s good.  Like_ Closing Time. _“Little Trip to Heaven,” all those._ You’re saying it without saying it: _I listened.  I remembered._

 

You get up to grab the bottle from your bag and open it in the little kitchen.  I take a deep breath, lift off my shirt. You look, of course you do, but courteously, not enough to be swayed from opening the bottle and pouring two generous glasses of some reasonably nice-looking red, I hardly care what.  Then I bend down and unlace my boots, gingerly. It hurts.

 

You’re watching and you notice.  “How’s the feet?”

 

“A mess,” I say, somewhat ruefully.  “I mean, it’s been nonstop for months, and I’ve really been pushed to my limits.  I need— I don’t even know what. Probably a pro, along with just some rest for a few days.”

 

“The latter we can do.”  You bring the glasses over, set them on the bedside table.  “Let me see.”

 

I roll my socks down, slowly.  You bend down. “Yikes.”

 

“I know.”  You name it, it’s wrong with my feet at the moment.  A bunion that’s been throbbing by two o’clock every day, blisters that have broken and bled and healed and bled again, heels cracking from the winter air.  I’d like to not even _stand_ for the next day or two if at all possible.

 

You stand back and think for a moment, then go to the kitchen, opening and closing the few cupboards there are.  “What are you looking for?” I ask.

 

“Got it.”  

 

I unbutton my jeans and slip them carefully over my feet.  I sit on the edge of the bed in my underwear, watching you, still fully clothed, in the kitchen.  You’ve got a big white ceramic bowl with a blue and a brown stripe around the top, which you’re filling with water from the faucet.  While it fills you take off the shirt you’re wearing over another one, hanging it over the chair at the table, and then you tie back your hair before bringing the bowl over to me.  

 

“Here,” you say.  “Give me your foot.”  You settle yourself on the floor, cross-legged, the bowl next to you.

 

“Ugh, no.  They’re gross.”

 

You look up at me, your eyes kind, your mouth serious.  “I’m not just here for the pretty parts, you know,” you say. “If you really don’t want me to do it, I won’t.  But I want you to know that I want to.”

 

I swallow, hard.  It’s been a long time.  I lift my left foot from the floor.

 

You nod.

 

I let it slide into the water and I almost cry, it feels so good.  All the weight comes off in the water; the bowl is deep enough that I can let my foot float an inch or two above the bottom, and I detach myself from the earth and hover in the warmth you’ve brought.  

 

“Go ahead,” you say.  “I’m going to see if I can find something that might feel decent.  Just rest there for a minute.”

 

Believe me, I will.  I bend forward for a moment, hugging myself, while you fuss around in the bathroom.  “I don’t want anything too soapy,” you call. “Don’t want to irritate anything.” You emerge, head back to the kitchen, rustle around in some cupboards again.  “Coconut oil. That’ll do.”

 

“Just a little.  It’ll make a mess.”

 

“Got it.”  You draw a lighter from your pocket— so _dramatic,_ I think, feeling my mouth twist in a little smile, you could have just warmed it over the stove, but no, you need the fire in your hand, casting its flame on your sharp, beautiful face as you melt the oil in a little metal cup.  I thought of your face so much. I thought, _I want to see that face in the morning again.  I want to know it wasn’t a fluke or a mistake._

 

You come back, settle yourself on the floor again, pour the oil slowly into the bowl, sending a fresh wave of warmth over my tender feet.  I draw your face to my knees, and you kiss them obligingly as I bend down to kiss the top of your head. There it is again, that smell of Christmas.  Cinnamon. Pine. Presents.

 

We sit like that for a long moment, and then you sit up again and reach for my left foot in the water.  “Will it make things worse if I rub your foot a little?” you ask.

 

“Just be careful.  Not too hard.”

 

You nod and lift my left foot into your hand.  You have beautiful hands. My feet have allowed me to kick out the ground from beneath me and reach the heights I dreamed.  I try to remember that as you cradle one damaged foot in one beautiful hand, red and split as it is but soft and slippery and warm from the water and the oil.  You take it in the other hand as well as you examine it in the light from the lamp, looking for the spots that will be too tender, and then start to squeeze, gently, along the muscles covering the sesamoids.  

 

I moan.

 

“Too much?”

 

“Just right.  No harder, though.”

 

“Got it.”  You rub all along the fleshy pad just beneath my toes, and I think, _I didn’t even know I could want this._ Even as I’d thought of you for all these months— and of course I had, everything from _God, I was such a fool to let you go, you’ll forget about me_ to _we don’t even need to fuck again, even being in the same room would be something, hearing your voice unmediated by a phone or seeing your fingers and not just the words you’re typing—_ I hadn’t thought I could let you see this.  

 

I knew you’d want to see me dance again, of course.  That was the first time. You waited outside the stage door.   _I’ve never seen anyone move like you._ That was the first thing you said to me, not so much as a hello before you said, _and I might be crazy but, what the hell, you must be hungry._ You were such a mess that I actually laughed and said yes.  I liked that you were tall, and serious, and had a kind mouth.  Later that night, I liked how you touched me. The next morning, I liked how you sang.  That weekend, I liked how you made coffee and how you walked along the ridge and how you looked in the moonlight and the sunrise.  It all happened so fast. And then it was all gone so fast.

 

This, though: this is slow.  This is all the time in the world, my foot in your hand, your hands as warm and slick as the water itself now.  This is you singing a song I don’t understand under your breath, so softly you might not even realize you’re doing it.  You knead my heel with your knuckles. I watch you doing it, your eyes and hands in a tight harmony, all your concentration on me and how much I needed this.  The dam of blood and sinew that’s been building up for weeks is breaking, flowing back into the rest of me and making me a whole person again.

 

You lift my foot and bend your head and kiss me there, barely more than a peck, just below my toes.

 

“Oh.”  Involuntarily it comes out.

 

You look up, a small, cautious smile.  “Is that okay?”

 

“Yeah.  It’s just—” I stop and reach for the wine.  “I wasn’t expecting it.”

 

“Were you expecting any of this?”

 

I shake my head and reach for the wine glass, take a long drink.

 

“There you go.”  You rest that foot back in the water.  “Other one.”

 

I lift it into your hand, and as you begin the same process on my right foot, another dam breaking, life coming back to my hips and my lungs and my throat, I start to cry.

 

“Hey.  You okay?”

 

I nod and take a deep breath.  “I’m okay.”

 

“You sure?  I’m not hurting you?”

 

“Jesus, no.”  I shake my head.  “I’m— I’m so tired.  That’s all.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Later, in a day or two, we’re going to figure things out.  We’re just going to rest tonight, right?”

 

“Right.”

 

“There you go.”  You kiss the top of my foot, just like you did the other one, and it all breaks apart then, every last knot in my head and my stomach untying.  I fall back on the bed; you stand up, bend over me, take my hands in yours and press them gently into the bed as you kiss me, harder this time. You mean it.  You’re here. You’re not going anywhere. Neither am I.

 

“I’ll be right back,” you whisper in my ear before you let me go.

 

“Okay.”

 

You bring back a towel to dry my feet, and once they’re dry, you take the bowl back to the kitchen and then loosen your hair and lift off your shirt.  I pull my lower body up into bed and push back the duvet, ready to welcome you, your body the same warm gold as the light of the lamp.

 

You finish undressing and slide into bed beside me.  Wrapping your arms around me, you nudge my underwear down my hips, my thighs; I oblige by pushing them down the rest of the way.

 

What will we do now?  Our bodies curl into each other and we push out the rest of our lives, onto a path we can’t see, each time we move against each other like a bow across a violin.  

 

What will we do now?  In the morning, your hair spills across the pillow and the sunlight spills over it.  I can’t believe I’m awake before you, but I’ll wait for you to make the coffee. Your phone isn’t locked.  I put on “Picture in a Frame.” I let my feet rest on the floor. The ache is going away. I stand and stretch, greeting the sun like it’s the first time I’ve ever seen it.  

 

What will we do now?  You blink yourself awake at _I come calling in my Sunday best._ “Hey,” you say.

 

“Good morning,” I say.

 

“Coffee?”

 

“Yes please.”

 

You roll out of bed.  Before you make the coffee, you cross over to the other side of the bed and hold me briefly, kiss the side of my neck.

 

What will we do now?  This, again and again.  Maybe not without interruption.  Maybe with space, maybe with darkness.  But never with fear, never with wondering if it’s the last time.  This. Again and again.

  
  
  



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